Words of wisdom from Grandma...or not?

My Grandmother once told me that the decisions and actions I make as a young woman will influence my life when I am older, either positively or negatively. She encouraged me to try and make positive decisions in the hope of making me a better person in the future. Sage advice that I didn’t take soundly at the time for a variety of reasons, number one being I didn’t think she – at 70 – could even begin to understand what I – at 20 –was going through.

She told me not to smoke, while she had a Pall Mall dangling from her lips.

She told me not to drink alcohol while tossing back her Hi-Ball glass filled with gin and tonic in a 5:1 mix ( 5 being gin).

Always leave the table a little hungry. Obesity and gluttony are not attractive in a woman.

She told me that good girls don’t have sex before marriage, and then ENDURE it afterward because it’s the only way to propagate. And three children was the ideal number. Any more was just an advertisement that you were having sex.

She told me breast-feeding was for hippies, and birth control was for “sluts.”

Never be a doctor, she said, when nursing is the only acceptable medical profession for women. Besides, if I was a nurse, I could MARRY a doctor and let him do all the work.

Does any of this sound remotely familiar to anyone? I really can’t stand to think that I was the only girl on the planet who was ever subjected to such a load of lunacy.

She may have been right about one thing, though, although I am loathe to admit it. The actions you make in your young adult years may just influence one aspect of your future: the age of onset of menopause.

In an article published in April 2012 in MYHEALTHNEWSDAILY, a study conducted at the Institute of Cancer Research in the UK suggested that the factor that made the biggest difference in menopause age of onset, was smoking. Women who smoked started menopause about 2 years earlier than those who didn’t. They also studied the effect of body weight and onset, in addition to consumption of alcohol.

Here are the highlights:

11.     Smokers experienced earlier onset

22.    Women who were considered obese by BMI experienced onset about 1 year later than average weight women

33.     Women who drank more than 1-2 drinks per day between 25 and 49 years of age underwent onset later as did women who regularly and strenuously exercised between 30 and 49.

44.    Also, women who had more than 3 children experienced later onset.

Previous studies postulated that certain genetic factors, smoking, and not having children are linked with earlier onset as well.

The article concludes by stating “Researchers aren’t sure why the age of menopause is linked with a person’s ( woman’s) BMI and weight gain in the decades prior to menopause, but it’s possible that the mechanisms involved are hormonal. Fatty tissue affects levels of sex hormones such as estrogens.”

So Granny was right about a few things: don’t smoke, don’t consume alcohol, keep your weight at a level range and don’t have too many kids.

I actually hit a few of the wisdoms: I don’t smoke and never have. I rarely drink alcohol, and I became a nurse who married a doctor.

The weight and sex points are not up for discussion here!

Here’s the whole article: copy and paste, or click.

http://fxn.ws/1kYRzj4